Osaka Poster Print - Japan Travel Posters

Dawn of Osaka City Giclee Print
Lin, Jenchieh
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OSAKA - VENICE OF JAPAN

If you are told that Osaka is a fine city to get away from, do not be too ready to believe it. Osaka has its attractions. They are not apparent to one rushing over its busy streets and canals. They grow on a longer stay there. You may not like to live in Osaka, but once settled there you will dislike leaving it. Osaka is a city of commerce, manufacture and money-making. It is a business city, and those interested in business -- what man is not? -- cannot afford to ignore it.

The latest report that some of the world's greatest news agencies are posting full-time correspondents in Osaka is but another proof of its attractions as a business center of the world. It is here that money is literally manufactured--Osaka has the only government mint there is in Japan--and the largest volume of foreign trade is annually transacted. It is here also that the two greatest daily newspapers in Japan are published. These two, by the way, with their sister organs in Tokyo, divide between them the ninth part of the entire newspaper readers of Japan, it is said.

The latest census puts the population of Osaka at 2,636,256, Japan's third largest city after Tokyo. The Yodo is to Osaka what the Sumida is to Tokyo, but the city, growing apace on both sides, has fairly buried it. You will scarce notice this great river, full of historic and romantic associations, though you may cross and re-cross it in your auto trips through its densely-populated, hurryscurry streets.

Osaka is a regular checker-board of criss-crossing streets, rivers and canals. Its waterways are 40 miles long and are crossed by 1,320 bridges. It is sometimes called the "Venice of Japan." This closeknitted cobweb of streets and waterways, together with its splendid harbor--which will give an idea of Osaka's glory as an industrial city -- and its location in the center of serpentine Japan, have helped Osaka to rise to its commanding position in the nation's commerce. It is much more than the "Manchester of Japan," especially in allusion to its great cotton manufacture. It is, without exaggeration, the "Chicago of the Far East," if only in respect of its forest of chimneys seen everywhere. Osaka is said to be the richest city in Japan.

If Osaka is, above all else, a city of moneymakers, it is also a city of spenders, not of misers. Its spending, however, is guided by principles of business, or it is only part of the general scheme of money-making. That is why money circulates more in Osaka than anywhere else in the Empire. If there is not much in the way of sightseeing in the city proper, there are innumerable devices and organs for money-spending. Some of these are fashionable theaters, luxurious restaurants and expensive tea-houses, as well as cheap popular ones. Again, Osaka's gay districts have more houses of the red light, cafés, etc., per square block, than similar districts in any other city of Japan.